Response To My Article
Dental Mercury Fillings

Alvin H. Danenberg, DDS • Nutritional Periodontist
March 20, 2017

 

 

I receive many email questions about articles I write. I welcome them, and I respond to everyone. Specifically, my articles about dental mercury fillings^1,2 have created a slew of questions, concerns, agreements, and disputes.

 

Just last week, I received an email with some thoughtful questions from a practicing dentist who is in his early 60s. His email was about mercury vapor and overall health of older dentists. I think the subject and consequences are important; so, I am sharing them with everyone.

 

First, you’ll read his email questions to me. Next, you’ll read my response to him.

 

Reader’s Questions

I assume that you are about my age – 62 years old. When we both started dental school, you probably remember that no dentist was wearing gloves or masks while treating patients. That’s just the way it was. For decades before us, no dentists were wearing exam gloves or surgical gloves or facemasks. So, I have three big questions for you:

1. If we have mercury vapor released from existing amalgam fillings in our mouth every time we chew, why aren’t we all sick?
2. When we, as dentists, drill out old fillings without protection and are exposed to tremendous amounts of mercury vapor blown into our faces, why aren’t we all sick?
3. Dentists our age and older should be the sickest people on earth, yet we are not. How do you explain this?

 

My Response

Thanks for reaching out to me. You are just a youngster; I will be 70-years-old next month.

 

Many dentists of our age have various chronic diseases. Most of my dental contemporaries are taking several medications for high blood pressure, “ high cholesterol”, diabetes, obesity, and various other chronic diseases. However, not everyone is “sick”.

 

I had a stroke at the age of 59. I thought I had been following a healthy lifestyle, but I was wrong. So, I began a search to learn how I could get healthy again. But, I didn’t learn about primal nutrition and lifestyle until I was 66. That’s when I turned my life around. Now I am the healthiest I have ever been in my entire life. What in my life from age “0” until age “59” set me up for a stroke? I am sure there were many insults to my body in various forms that slowly worked their damage to cause me eventually to have a stroke. I am sure that it was not just one bad thing that I ate or that I inhaled or that I neglected to do in my life.

 

Unfortunately, chronic disease in our modern society today is rampant. Interestingly, chronic diseases are practically nonexistent in the few truly primal societies in existence today. However, when some members of those “primal societies” relocate to modern cities, they develop chronic diseases that never were existent in their homeland.

 

Actual manifestations of chronic disease develop over decades. Today’s toxic load from all things is more than ever before in the history of humans. Our body is able to naturally remove most toxic substances very efficiently and effectively. However, as more and more toxic substances put strain on our body’s ability to flush them out, our cellular metabolism goes into a slowdown and eventually cannot function efficiently or effectively. Mercury vapor is only one of many toxic substances our body must deal with.

 

Do you remember asbestos? As dentists, we used asbestos to line a cylinder during our process of casting gold crowns for our patients in dental school. In those days, no one knew of the deadly harm asbestos could cause in the future. We certainly know now the deadly damage that inhaled asbestos fibers caused in lungs decades after the exposure.

 

The damage from toxic overload is usually imperceptible in the beginning, but it is cumulative over decades of exposure. Each of us reacts differently based on our immune system, our lifestyle, and our genetic makeup.

 

Since I cannot avoid all toxic substances in my world, I certainly want to be proactive when and where I can. I don’t want to expose myself to toxic substances that medical science has shown to be harmful and that I can avoid. Mercury dental fillings, as one of many toxic elements in our environment, are toxic substances that are avoidable. Mercury in any form should never be placed intentionally in the human body.

 

Keep Questions Coming

I welcome all questions no matter if a person agrees with me or not. I want to continue having healthy discussions based on facts, as they exist. Keep the questions coming.

 

 

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